Lead & Follow

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Full transcript and show notes: https://www.sharnafabiano.com/2026/07/29/the-tango-waits-for-you-chapter-1-the-dream/

The Tango Waits For You is a 4-part documentary series that tells the story of the first year of building a brand-new tango community in Long Beach, California. It’s both my story, of losing a dream and finding it again, and it’s also a story of dozens of people coming together by chance in a way that feels like it was truly meant to be. It’s a story full of friendship, connection, trust, and discovery, all the things we seek together on the dance floor. Being together in person is so important right now. Whether you dance tango or not, I hope you enjoy these episodes.

Chapter 1: The Dream -  After being retired from tango for seven years, Sharna meets four locals at a coffee meetup who want to learn to dance.

Episode References

Tango Resources & LB Tango Schedule
https://www.sharnafabiano.com/tango

Altar Society Brewing & Coffee Co.
https://altarsocietybrewco.com/

Mike Cokley, Altar Society General Manager
[email protected]

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Sharna Fabiano is the author of Lead & Follow: The Dance of Inspired Teamwork and host of the Lead & Follow Podcast. She helps founders, solopreneurs, and new leaders build strong collaborative relationships and successful teams. 

Get a discounted coach session with Sharna with promo code PODCAST
https://www.sharnafabiano.com/coaching/

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

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Full transcript and show notes: https://www.sharnafabiano.com/2026/07/29/how-argentine-tango-changes-the-way-we-connect-sharna-fabiano-dan-istrate/

For many people, Argentine tango becomes more than a dance—it becomes a way of experiencing connection, presence, and relationship. In this reverse interview, Sharna Fabiano reflects with actor and director Dan Istrate on her own journey with tango, from her first discovery of the dance to the ways it continues to shape how she understands partnership and human connection.

Sharna Fabiano is the host of Lead & Follow and has spent years exploring tango as a social dance form, performer, teacher, and researcher of embodied collaboration. Dan Istrate, an actor and director originally from Romania, returns to the podcast to help unpack the personal and artistic impact of a dance built on listening, responsiveness, and shared creation.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why Argentine tango creates such a powerful experience of connection between partners.
• How social dance can transform the way people relate to themselves and others.
• What makes improvisation and responsiveness central to tango.
• Why vulnerability is essential to creating genuine connection.
• How tango reveals the balance between initiating, receiving, and adapting.

More with Dan Istrate

S3 E3: How to Have Better Conversations: Presence, Connection, and Social Confidence – Dan Istrate
https://leadfollow.buzzsprout.com/1735834/episodes/14781194-connected-social-conversations-dan-istrate

S1 E15: Ensemble Performance: How Actors Create Powerful Scenes Through Collaboration - Dan Istrate
https://leadfollow.buzzsprout.com/1735834/episodes/9621693-lead-follow-relationships-in-live-theater-performance-dan-istrate

Connect with Dan Istrate
www.danistrate.com

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Sharna Fabiano is the author of Lead & Follow: The Dance of Inspired Teamwork and host of the Lead & Follow Podcast. She helps founders, solopreneurs, and new leaders build strong collaborative relationships and successful teams. 

Get a discounted coach session with Sharna with promo code PODCAST
https://www.sharnafabiano.com/coaching/

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

Support the Show!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1735834/support

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Full transcript and show notes: https://www.sharnafabiano.com/2026/07/29/why-employees-choose-to-follow-leaders-culture-and-context-at-work-maike-kugler/

Why do people choose to support a leader in one situation but resist the same person in another? Dr. Maike Kugler challenges the idea that being a leader or a follower is a fixed role or personality trait. Her research explores instead how the choice to follower someone else is something shaped by expectations, relationships, culture, and the specific context in which people are working together.

Maike Kugler researches leadership and followership with a focus on voluntariness, meaning, and relational dynamics. She examines how cultural differences and organizational contexts influence the way people understand their roles, contribute to shared goals, and respond to those who hold formal authority.

You’ll learn:

• Why employees follow some leaders willingly and disengage from others 
• How trust and expectations shape leader–employee relationships 
• Why cultural context changes the meaning of influence and authority 
• How organizations can study leadership relationships beyond simple leader-versus-follower roles 
• Why followership is a social process that changes from one situation to another 

Episode References 

"The (In)voluntary follower," Martin Blom and Mikael Lundgren https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1742715019888078

"Following the beaten paths: a systematic literature review of followership behavior," Maike Kugler and Ruth Sims 
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/jmd-10-2024-0359/full/html

S1 E4 – Influence of Followership Behaviors on Organizational Success - Ruth Sims
https://leadfollow.buzzsprout.com/1735834/episodes/8516582-influence-of-followership-behaviors-on-organizational-success-ruth-sims

 S3 E6 - The 4 Tiers of Followership - Eric McDermott
https://leadfollow.buzzsprout.com/1735834/episodes/15254928-the-4-tiers-of-followership-eric-mcdermott

Connect with Maike Kugler

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-maike-kugler

University profile: https://www.ehip.eu/hochschule/team/professoren/prof-dr-maike-kugler/

Support the show

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Sharna Fabiano is the author of Lead & Follow: The Dance of Inspired Teamwork and host of the Lead & Follow Podcast. She helps founders, solopreneurs, and new leaders build strong collaborative relationships and successful teams. 

Get a discounted coach session with Sharna with promo code PODCAST
https://www.sharnafabiano.com/coaching/

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

Support the Show!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1735834/support

Send Fan Mail by Text!

Full transcript and show notes: https://www.sharnafabiano.com/2026/07/29/toxic-boss-in-tech-the-research-on-what-actually-works-karen-perham-lippman/

Many of us feel powerless when work environments become dysfunctional.  In this episode, Sharna speaks with Dr. Karen Perham-Lippman about her research on toxic leadership in the technology industry and the ways employees respond to it. Karen explains why some people remain silent, why others adapt to survive, and why some individuals choose to challenge the status quo despite personal and professional risks. 

Karen serves as Senior Manager of Global Inclusion and Belonging at Otis Worldwide Corporation. She is a Certified Diversity Professional and has worked with nonprofits, state government, municipal clients, and businesses across diverse industries and sectors globally. She earned her Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Organizational Leadership and Business Management from Eastern University.

You'll learn:

• Why workplace cultures can unintentionally enable destructive leadership
• How “Challengers” create positive change in difficult environments
• The role of peer support and communities of coping in maintaining individual well-being
• How organizations can reduce the conditions that allow toxic leadership to persist

About Karen

Dr. Karen Perham-Lippman serves as Senior Manager of Global Inclusion and Belonging at Otis Worldwide Corporation. As a pracademic and mission-driven business strategist with nearly fifteen years of demonstrated strategic and process thinking results in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), ESG, and social impact, she has worked with nonprofits, state government, municipal clients, and businesses across diverse industries and sectors globally. She currently serves as Co-President of the League of Women Voters South Hampton Roads in Virginia and was appointed to the State League’s DEI Committee. 

Karen is a Certified Diversity Professional and holds a certificate in designing equitable courses from the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE). She earned her Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Organizational Leadership and Business Management from Eastern University, where she received the College of Business and Leadership's 2025 Student Service Award presented to a graduating student who has exemplified the college and doctoral program's ideals of leadership and scholarship on and off campus through significant contributions to the field. Karen’s scholarship is published with Ethics International Press, Emerald Publishing, Forbes, Merits International Journal, and SAGE Publishing. Her forthcoming book, Bridging Generations: Transformative Intergenerational Leadership and Followership, will be available from Emerald Publishing in Spring 2026.

Episode References

ILA Global Conference in Prague

Connect with Karen

LinkedIn - for general connections

ResearchGate – for research updates or to collaborate 

Forbes Human Resources Council – for writing contributions on Forbes 

Support the show

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Sharna Fabiano is the author of Lead & Follow: The Dance of Inspired Teamwork and host of the Lead & Follow Podcast. She helps founders, solopreneurs, and new leaders build strong collaborative relationships and successful teams. 

Get a discounted coach session with Sharna with promo code PODCAST
https://www.sharnafabiano.com/coaching/

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

Support the Show!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1735834/support

Send Fan Mail by Text!

Full transcript and show notes: https://www.sharnafabiano.com/2026/07/29/how-self-managing-teams-work-collaboration-without-a-single-leader-chris-mono/

What happens when a team stops waiting for someone at the top to make everything happen? Chris Monö explores why effective groups do not always need more direction from leaders—they need shared purpose, mutual responsibility, and the ability to use leadership as a resource rather than a dependency. His work challenges the assumption that every successful team needs a central person guiding every decision.

Chris Monö is an author and consultant based in Sweden who has spent nearly two decades studying leadership and followership from the perspective of the people who choose to participate. He is the creator of the concepts “natural followership” and “collaborationship” and author of Why We Follow: Natural Followership in a World Obsessed with Leadership.

You’ll learn:

• How self-managing teams make decisions without relying on one person to lead everything 
• Why employee ownership matters for creating effective groups 
• How leaders can avoid becoming bottlenecks for their teams 
• What makes people choose to contribute, cooperate, and take responsibility 
• Why collaboration depends on shared purpose more than hierarchy 

Episode References:

Why We Follow: Natural Followership in a World Obsessed with Leadership, by Chris Monö
https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Follow-Followership-Leadership/dp/9198847325

 S2 E21 - Natural Followership - Christian Monö
https://leadfollow.buzzsprout.com/1735834/episodes/13838983-natural-followership-christian-mono

 Global Followership Conference
http://www.followershipconference.com

Support the show

*
Sharna Fabiano is the author of Lead & Follow: The Dance of Inspired Teamwork and host of the Lead & Follow Podcast. She helps founders, solopreneurs, and new leaders build strong collaborative relationships and successful teams. 

Get a discounted coach session with Sharna with promo code PODCAST
https://www.sharnafabiano.com/coaching/

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

Support the Show!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1735834/support

Send Fan Mail by Text!

Full transcript and show notes: https://www.sharnafabiano.com/2026/07/29/beyond-social-dance-how-tango-builds-connection-through-movement-thomas-rieser/

What happens when the principles of Argentine tango move beyond the dance floor? Thomas Rieser explores how simple tango exercises can help people experience deeper connection, presence, and group awareness—even outside the world of social dance.

Thomas Rieser is the owner of Nou Tango, a tango studio in Berlin, Germany, which recently celebrated its 20-year anniversary. Through two decades of teaching and organizing, he has developed an approach that balances individual growth with the creation of a supportive group culture, revealing how tango can become a practice for human connection and collective learning.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How tango exercises can be adapted for groups beyond traditional dance settings.
• Why movement and body awareness can reveal new ways of connecting with others.
• How teachers balance individual development with group culture.
• What social dance can teach us about presence, trust, and community.
• Why tango creates experiences of connection that are difficult to explain but easy to feel.

Episode References 

Nou Tango Studio
https://noutango.berlin/ 

Tango Connects Conference
https://tango.connects.berlin/

 S4 E1 - Tango Leadership: How Partnership Replaces Command and Control - Veronica Toumanova
https://leadfollow.buzzsprout.com/1735834/episodes/16416925-leading-following-in-the-tango-veronica-toumanova

"Efficacy of Tango Argentino for Cancer-Associated Fatigue and Quality of Life in Breast Cancer Survivors: A Randomized Controlled Trial"
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37296883/

Connect with Thomas Rieser

FB: https://www.facebook.com/Thomas.Rieser

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-rieser/

Support the show

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Sharna Fabiano is the author of Lead & Follow: The Dance of Inspired Teamwork and host of the Lead & Follow Podcast. She helps founders, solopreneurs, and new leaders build strong collaborative relationships and successful teams. 

Get a discounted coach session with Sharna with promo code PODCAST
https://www.sharnafabiano.com/coaching/

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

Support the Show!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1735834/support

Send Fan Mail by Text!

Full transcript and show notes: https://www.sharnafabiano.com/2026/07/29/how-to-be-an-effective-ally-when-supporting-a-movement-means-following-not-leading-ashton-r-cooper/

What does it mean to support a movement without making yourself the center of it? Dr. Ashton R. Cooper examines this question through his research on White activists who participated in the Black-led Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. His work challenges the assumption that meaningful contribution always requires taking charge, showing how people can often serve a movement best by listening, learning, and following the leadership of those most affected.

Ashton R. Cooper is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education in the School of Education at the University of Cincinnati. His research explores leadership, followership, and social justice in education, including how people build coalitions and disrupt harmful systems through reciprocal, community-centered approaches. His recent work, “Antiracist Followership: Rethinking Social Justice Leadership in Education,” examines how role flexibility can reshape our understanding of influence and responsibility.

You’ll learn:

• Why allyship sometimes requires stepping back rather than taking the lead 
• What White activists in the Civil Rights Movement reveal about responsible support 
• How people with privilege can contribute without centering themselves 
• Why listening to affected communities is essential for meaningful action 
• How leadership roles can shift depending on context, experience, and need 

Episode References

• Ashton R. Cooper (2024) Antiracist followership: rethinking social justice leadership in education, Whiteness and Education, DOI: 10.1080/23793406.2024.2433952 
• Helena Liu, Redeeming Leadership: An Anti-Racist Feminist Intervention. Bristol University Press, 2021
  https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/redeeming-leadership
• Robert M. McManus and Gama Perruci, Understanding Leadership: An Arts and Humanities Perspective, Routledge, 2015
  https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Leadership-arts-humanities-perspective/dp/0415728738 
• Say Burgin, Organizing Your Own: The White Fight for Black Power in Detroit, NYU Press, 2024
  https://nyupress.org/9781479814145/organizing-your-own/

Connect with Ashton Cooper

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashton-cooper-phd-13595816/

Support the show

*
Sharna Fabiano is the author of Lead & Follow: The Dance of Inspired Teamwork and host of the Lead & Follow Podcast. She helps founders, solopreneurs, and new leaders build strong collaborative relationships and successful teams. 

Get a discounted coach session with Sharna with promo code PODCAST
https://www.sharnafabiano.com/coaching/

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

Support the Show!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1735834/support

Send Fan Mail by Text!

Full transcript and show notes: https://www.sharnafabiano.com/2026/07/29/tango-leadership-how-partnership-replaces-command-and-control-veronica-toumanova/

Argentine tango challenges a common assumption about leadership: that leading means giving commands and following means simply obeying. Tango artist Veronica Toumanova explores how the dance reveals a different model—one based on listening, responsiveness, consent, and a shared conversation between partners.

Veronica Toumanova has spent more than 20 years learning, dancing, teaching, and performing tango internationally. Originally from Russia and now based in Europe, she has taught and performed across Europe and North America, written widely about tango, and published her “Why Tango” essay collections. Her deep technical knowledge of both roles gives her a unique perspective on how tango can reshape our understanding of partnership.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why tango challenges the idea that leadership is about control.
• How partner dance creates a conversation rather than a command structure.
• What tango reveals about listening as a leadership skill.
• Why following requires intention, choice, and active participation.
• How lessons from tango apply to power dynamics in life and work.

Whether you dance tango or work in leadership, this conversation offers a fresh perspective on how influence, trust, and collaboration emerge when people learn to move together.

 Episode References

Tango Connects Conference
(Organising Team: Thomas Rieser, Veronica Toumanova, Juliana Thutlwa, Almut Knauß, and Stefan Knauß)
http://tango.connects.berlin/ 

Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555

Connect with Veronica

Website - https://verotango.com
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@verotango
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/veronica.toumanova

Support the show

*
Sharna Fabiano is the author of Lead & Follow: The Dance of Inspired Teamwork and host of the Lead & Follow Podcast. She helps founders, solopreneurs, and new leaders build strong collaborative relationships and successful teams. 

Get a discounted coach session with Sharna with promo code PODCAST
https://www.sharnafabiano.com/coaching/

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

Support the Show!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1735834/support

Send Fan Mail by Text!

Full transcript and show notes: https://www.sharnafabiano.com/2026/07/29/season-4-preview-excerpt-of-my-book/

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the need to get away from digital life and back to in person life, and as beautiful as it is to connect online with folks everywhere, it’s also really important to be in both the same time and the same place with others in a full body way. 

So in 2025 I’m planning to teach more in person tango classes. And for the podcast, I plan to bring you more interviews with tango artists sharing their wisdom on embodied leading and following.

In the meantime, I thought I would read for you the Preface from my book, Lead & Follow, which tells a condensed version of my tango origin story. If you haven’t yet picked up a copy, this will give you a sense of where my perspective on leading and following comes from. 

Lead & Follow: The Dance of Inspired Teamwork is available anywhere you buy books. If you’re ordering from outside the US, I recommend betterworldbooks.com – they ship to nearly every country.

Support the show

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Sharna Fabiano is the author of Lead & Follow: The Dance of Inspired Teamwork and host of the Lead & Follow Podcast. She helps founders, solopreneurs, and new leaders build strong collaborative relationships and successful teams. 

Get a discounted coach session with Sharna with promo code PODCAST
https://www.sharnafabiano.com/coaching/

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

Support the Show!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1735834/support

Send Fan Mail by Text!

Full transcript and show notes: https://www.sharnafabiano.com/2026/07/29/why-great-teams-dont-depend-on-one-leader-the-science-of-shared-influence-ron-riggio/

What changes when we stop assuming the leader is the person who makes things happen and everyone else simply follows? Dr. Ron Riggio explores two decades of followership research showing that effective teams are built through mutual influence, shared responsibility, and the active participation of the people around the leader.

Ron Riggio is the Henry R. Kravis Professor of Leadership and Organizational Psychology and former Director of the Kravis Leadership Institute at Claremont McKenna College, where the first followership conference was held in 2006. His research has helped expand our understanding of how followers contribute to leadership processes, including current work on the anatomy of followership, implicit peer theory, and storytelling approaches to studying group behavior.

You’ll learn:

• Why teams struggle when people assume “the leader knows best” 
• How employees influence outcomes even without formal authority 
• What research reveals about the behaviors of effective team contributors 
• Why leadership is created through relationships, not just individual actions 
• How understanding follower identity can change the way teams work together 

 
Episode References

Claremont McKenna College
https://www.cmc.edu

Art of Followership, by Ronald E. Riggio, Ira Chaleff, & Jean Lipman-Blumen (Eds.)
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Followership-Followers-Leaders-Organizations/dp/0787996653

Global Followership Conference
http://www.followershipconference.com 

Liu, Z., Riggio, R.E., Reichard, R.J., & Walker, D.O. (2022). Everyday leadership: The construct, its validation, and developmental antecedents. International Leadership Journal, 14(1), 3-35.

Beenen, G., Todorova, G., Pichler, S. & Riggio, R.E. (2022). Reconceptualizing multilevel leader-follower shared outcomes. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 29(2), 289-305. https://doi.org/10.1177/15480518221094481

Riggio, R.E., Lowe, K.B., & Levy, L. (2023). Why are followers neglected in leadership research.Organization Development Review, 55(3), 44-48.

 Riggio, R.E. (2014). Followership research: Looking back and looking forward.  Journal of Leadership Education, 13, DOI: 10.12806/V13/I4/C4

Support the show

*
Sharna Fabiano is the author of Lead & Follow: The Dance of Inspired Teamwork and host of the Lead & Follow Podcast. She helps founders, solopreneurs, and new leaders build strong collaborative relationships and successful teams. 

Get a discounted coach session with Sharna with promo code PODCAST
https://www.sharnafabiano.com/coaching/

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

Support the Show!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1735834/support